


You Stood Right There Until I Saw Me

by VJR22_6



Series: Seeing Colors-A Soulmate AU [3]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: F/F, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate AU, WE GOT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT THRU LEARNING TO LOVE, WE GOT GAMER DELLA, WE GOT PETNAMES FOR DELLA, WE GOT WHOLESOME DONALD AND PENNY CONTENT, its late im excited and gay lets GOOOO!!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 05:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21405199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VJR22_6/pseuds/VJR22_6
Summary: Penumbra, warrior of the moon, was never one to love, but Della's sky blue crept up on her anyway.
Relationships: Della Duck/Penumbra, Donald Duck & Penumbra (Disney: DuckTales)
Series: Seeing Colors-A Soulmate AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1487042
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77





	You Stood Right There Until I Saw Me

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally time for another soulmate story!!! Webby and Della's are still in the works but they should be done within a couple more weeks, and my next nanowrimo update should be along pretty soon! Thanks to my discord friends for being so supportive of my endless yapping about this AU. Big special thank you to Harpy for coming up with the nickname "Sunbeam" and for Phineas, because it was DMing you that led to the gaming bit! Lots of love, duck community!
> 
> Title taken from Britt Nicole's "Through Your Eyes."

The moon has always been gray. Not for everyone, of course, others see a whole slew of colors. But Penumbra, well… Penumbra only sees a gray moon desert, a sleek black sky, and white-speckled stars. And she had accepted that was how it was always going to be. Soulmates are a waste of time, she tells herself. A distraction from what’s important.

But as all things do, that idea gave way to something new. And Della Duck, loud and fearless, was certainly something new.

At first, Penumbra didn’t see a thing change. Della was so desperate to get home, she barely spent any time outside of sleeping and rebuilding the Spear. Penumbra just watched, near to bursting with suspicion. And then the other Moonlanders stepped up to help with the rocket, and Della suddenly had time in her day to relax. To breathe.

To talk about soulmates.

It was somewhere between talking of her kids and her brother that Della’s scarf began to go from moondust gray to something new, something gentler, something beautiful. Penny didn’t know what to call it, barely knew what to call herself. She loved the nickname, but she’d never say a word about it to anyone. That wasn’t her.

And then she launched Della back into space, back to where she’d been aching to be, and Penny suddenly understood the yearning her roommate had been feeling. Lunaris didn’t seem to notice, but Penny did, Penny definitely noticed. Everything from missing nicknames to the color in the world around her screamed “something is gone,” and that something was Della.

Penny missed hands on her shoulders, missed that white whirlwind of Della’s hair bouncing around the space they’d shared. She missed Della’s gentle snoring that first night after, suddenly enveloped in silence. She missed everything about her roomie, really, and had no way to tell anyone else because nobody else saw that color that Della brought her.

Especially when she looked at her own reflection, and her cheeks had a soft hue to them, as if she’d need a second color to really see herself right, but that she herself was better just by knowing Della.

So Penny fought to send transmissions as often as she could, plucked Donald Duck from his cell and looked into his eyes and saw her love for Della, staring right back, and sent him home to his sister with all of her respect.

And that night, locked away by Lunaris, who craved success over safety, Penny realized she could see another shade, like Della’s but deeper. Donald was full of emotions, a raging storm, where Della’s was soft as sugar and rich with wanderlust. She cherished them both in her hours of captivity, where she’d see the colors on screens outside the doors, listing her status and what she’d done.

Then she broke herself out, fought her way through too-small passages to the transmission hub, and began sending out messages again. There was a lot of hiding in those days, a lot of heart-poundingly close calls, but she made it alright. She made as many messages as she could, her voice echoing into the void, her heart longing for love she’d not even noticed she’d had.

The others took to the sky, and she watched their golden trails with horror. They were headed to hurt the earth, to hurt her Della, and there was nothing she could do about it. She just hid from Lunaris’ booming voice on the speakers, hoping he wouldn’t lock her up on his way to his own ship. She crept out after everything was still, and found her own reflection in a deserted window.

This time, she looked into her own eyes and saw a lovely lavender color, and somehow knew that because she’d come to love others, she finally loved herself enough to see that.

She took the rocket up on a whim. Maybe she’d get there too late, she didn’t know, but she got in that rocket all the same, and headed for earth and the beautiful colors she could see there, even from here. The swirls of Donald and Della’s colors, spun together as she hoped they were, in this moment where they really needed one another.

And when she smashed into Lunaris’s ship she did it for the twins.

She was so sure she’d die, giving the rocket everything she had left. But somehow the blast sent her reeling right into the Ducks’ window, wide-eyed and head-spinning but right where she belonged. She saw those colors again in Della’s scarf, in Donald’s eyes. She grinned as Della greeted her, felt like something was finally going right. “Hiya, roomie!”

Della pulls her into the ship after a breathless moment, and she kneels on the rocket floor, face buried in that beautiful color in Della’s scarf. She’s too overwhelmed to even speak, for a moment, while Della babbles for a full minute, nonstop. And then Donald wiggles his way into the embrace too, and she feels so warm and so loved, like nothing can stop her.

She meets the twins’ kids, and she’s quickly bowled over by the most excited one while Della reassumes the controls to get them safely landed. This one is like a tiny mirror of his mother, same eyes and smile, and he talks a mile a minute too. He asks her as much as he can possibly fit into one run-on sentence, and she finds herself smiling. He’s a new version of that delightful color, and Donald makes a distracted comment about how he’s blue, and the others are green, red, and pink.

Penny quickly decides, as she gathers the blue and pink kids into her lap to hold them during landing, that she’s going to stay with Della for a while. Just to get used to the rush of colors she’s experiencing, and to figure out what they mean.

Blue is many things, she discovers. Blue is late-night teacups full of sweet things, talking with Donald about how the kids never seem to tire out. Blue is the blanket Della tosses over her head when they’re curled up together on the couch, watching old movies that Della swears are good, even though no one else likes them. Blue is the set of a TV-show Dewey invites her to be on, and they actually send this episode back to Tranquility upon the kid’s insistence.

The other colors are their own stories, too. Red is the covers of books she reads to the kids from, especially Huey. Pink is the bracelet she puts on as a promise that she’ll see Webby after this adventure. Green is the grass she lies on outside, Louie napping against her side while she watches the others play.

Della helps her herd the kids off to bed, and they settle down in their shared room for another night. There are frames full of pictures of the kids on the dresser, a big rainbow of home and love and happiness. Della laughs as she looks them over. “Penny, they’re not gonna disappear on you!”

“I know, Sunbeam,” she sighs, and sets her helmet down, white hair springing up. “I just like the reminders.”

Della plays a video game before bed, and insists Penny play a round or two. She picks the little pink character, with his tiny arms and legs, because he reminds her of her pseudo-daughter with a dart gun. Fierce and smart and soft, all in one bright blow. Della chooses a warrior with a sword and a cape, setting him to blue, and Penny isn’t sure whether it’s because of her twin or her son, but she understands the color is Della’s favorite either way.  
She isn’t very good at this game- at least, not against Della, she can beat the kids if she doesn’t let them win- but they play until Della’s head starts slipping to the Moonlander’s shoulder, and then she wraps her partner in the softer blanket. She turns off the game system and the light, and Della sneaks a quick hug in the dark before settling into the pillows. This is home, right where she belongs, and she’s surrounded by sky blue because Della is home here too.


End file.
